Stephenie Coney stands only 5-foot-2, but you couldn’t find a better measure of resiliency for the Armstrong Atlantic State women Saturday afternoon.

Coney, held to one point during the first 39 minutes, scored the final four points to send the game to overtime and added four more in the extra 5-minute period to lead the Pirates to a surprising 69-67 upset of No. 5 South Carolina Aiken at Alumni Arena.

The last time Armstrong beat a top-10 team was Feb. 25, 2009 in a 92-91 overtime victory over No. 7 Francis Marion. USC Aiken, at No. 5, is believed to be the highest-ranked team ever to lose to the Armstrong women.

Armstrong (8-12, 3-10 Peach Belt Conference) snapped a four-game losing streak and won for only the third time in 14 games.

“My team kept me into it,” Coney said. “They told me not to get frustrated. I knew they needed me so I just stepped up.”

The junior point guard sank two free throws with 16 seconds left in regulation to tie the game at 59 and drilled a 3-pointer with 1:05 left in overtime to give the Pirates a 66-64 advantage.

Down the stretch, Tyler Carlson made two free throws and Coney added another as Armstrong hung on.

Demisha Mills and Tori Klewicki-McNutt led the Pirates with 15 points apiece. Carlson had 12 and Mauri Wells added 11, all in the second half.

Tiffany Moody led the Pacers with 14 points.

“It feels good, but yet it’s frustrating,” Armstrong coach Matt Schmidt said. “It’s a great feeling to win any game, much less beat a great team like USC Aiken. The frustrating part is we know we can play with any team in the league. It’s kind of what could’ve been.”

Coming off this effort, the Pirates have good reason to keep their sights on the future. They’re 1½ games out of the fourth and final spot in the division standings to advance to the conference tournament.

The winner of the conference tournament will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division II Championships.

Aiken (18-3, 11-3 PBC) leads the six-team East Division and was picked as a co-champion to win the league in the preseason with Clayton State.

But the Pirates stayed with Aiken for most of the first half. Mills had eight of Armstrong’s first 10 points in about a four-minute span as the hosts built a six-point lead.

Aiken retaliated with a 9-0 burst, started by a 3-pointer from Daniela Tarailo, the league’s most recent Player of the Week.

Armstrong tied the game at 13-13 on Klewicki-McNutt’s 3-pointer, and the game seesawed with six lead changes during the next 5½ minutes before the Pacers ended the half on an 8-2 run to lead 28-23.

Aiken had leads of 10 twice — 41-31 and 43-33. With 6:02 to go, the Pacers led 53-44.

“Every game we talk about teams that make runs,” Schmidt said. “We have to combat their runs. We battled back from being down at other times in the year.”